


cinnamon sugar lips

by cosmiccuriosities



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Mall AU, Oblivious Park Jisung (NCT), One Shot, also i wrote majority of this at 12-2am so proceed with caution, and chenle is very persistent, just jisung being really innocent and cute, no beta we go down like taeyong during mama 2020, overall chenji is super cute and i just had to write them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 19:41:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29176596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmiccuriosities/pseuds/cosmiccuriosities
Summary: Chenle doesn't like pretzels, but he thinks he could overlook that for a certain cute boy working at Auntie Anne's.
Relationships: Park Jisung & Zhong Chen Le, Park Jisung/Zhong Chen Le
Comments: 12
Kudos: 104





	cinnamon sugar lips

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [make me over](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14660685) by [bluebot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebot/pseuds/bluebot). 



> happy early birthday to park jisung!!! (we're actually only 4 days apart, same year and everything lol)
> 
> the idea of awkward pretzel boy jisung is so cute and i just had to write it even though it was 12am, so do be warned that majority of this fic was written at like... midnight. 
> 
> also, i originally meant to have my noren wip up first, but this idea would not get out of my head so i guess chenji takes the spot as my first fic! not that I'm complaining, i really do love chenji :)
> 
> as mentioned in the tags, unbeta'd.
> 
> i hope it lives up to the original work. okay, read on!

Chenle thought Donghyuck was many things- funny, a talented makeup artist, and stubborn, to name a few. Right now though, Chenle thought Donghyuck was _disgusting._ He’d just found Donghyuck with his lips against Mark’s, at the vanity counter, in public, while on the job. Chenle wished he could rinse his eyes with bleach, but he had settled on coughing into his hand and telling Donghyuck off instead. He’ll make fun of him for it later.

He feels the pretzel churn in his stomach weirdly, threatening to come up his throat at the sheer sight of Donghyuck and Mark sucking face. Gross.

As excited as he is for Donghyuck, he can’t help but feel a sense of pity for himself. His mind wanders to Pretzel Boy (as it often does), his cute little nose, the way he stammers while taking orders like it’s his first day at the job, his abnormally big hands-

He hears Donghyuck walk back up to the counter, where he’d been staring into the cash register, pretending to busy himself with this week’s sales. 

“You guys are gonna be disgusting, aren’t you?”

“Like you and Pretzel Boy are gonna be any better.”

Ah, Pretzel Boy. The image of the mousey little (tall) boy makes it’s way into Chenle’s mind again, and, really, he can only dream.

“I wish,” he sighs forlornly, picking at a peeling sticker on the register, “Pretzel Boy doesn’t even know I exist.” He wonders why he couldn’t be as lucky as Donghyuck in the love department. And also why Taeyong hadn’t taken the sticker off the register when it had first come in.

“Chenle, about that,” Donghyuck starts, mischief in his voice. Chenle knows it when he hears it, having heard it before when both Donghyuck and Jeno had played a prank on him during work. Needless to say, he does not like the sound of it. He looks up from the sticker, only to see the same mischievous grin plastered on Donghyuck’s face. 

“Jeno may have told me a thing or two about Pretzel Boy’s interest in a ‘boy with purple hair’,” Donghyuck emphasizes the quotation marks with his hands.

Chenle feels his heart sink, his heels dig into his trainers, and his face falls. “I never win,” he sighs again, going back to pick at the pesky sticker on the register.

“Chenle, you’ve got purple hair.”

“Oh.”

_Right._

“Wait,” Chenle stills, looking up to Donghyuck, sticker long forgotten, then points to his hair, “like… lavender purple hair?”

“I’m pretty sure you’re the only Auntie Anne’s regular with purple hair.”

“Oh,” Chenle half-exclaims, which might as well be a full exclamation, because the boy is loud, “my GOD.”

Donghyuck moves past Chenle to arrange the receipts at the other register, shrugging when Chenle continues to gape at him. 

“I, uh, _ohmygod_ , what do I do?”

“I dunno. Asking for his number would be a good start.”

 _Yeah, duh,_ Chenle’s brain supplies, but the shock has him rooted to the ground still. Pretzel Boy? Liking him? The thought alone makes him short-circuit.

“I mean, it’s not like you don’t see him every time you come in for a shift. Just ask for his number when you get your pretzel this time. Easy,” Donghyuck suggests, as if he’s now a relationship expert having made out with Mark in the middle of work.

“Anyway, his name is Jisung. So you can stop calling him ‘Pretzel Boy’, now.”

Chenle hates that Donghyuck is right.

-

And that’s how Chenle finds himself hid behind a pillar during his break. Pretzel Boy, no, _Jisung_ , is on shift, as he usually is, and Chenle mentally thanks himself for figuring out his schedule through the many pretzel runs he’s been on. Which is, embarrassingly, more than he can count on his fingers. Chenle shakes the thought out of his head. Now is not the time to be insecure, Chenle tells himself, now is the time to be cool. Confident. Suave. He stalls. No, he needs to lower the bar. Not-a-bumbling-hot-mess will suffice. 

He peeks out from behind the pillar, to find that Jisung is almost done with the last customer in the queue. Chenle leans up against the pillar, checks his makeup in his little dog-shaped pocket mirror, and then stuffs it into his pocket. Game on.

“Oh, you’re back,” Jisung says, small eyes widened in surprise. Then, remembering he has to stick to the script, “Welcome to Auntie Anne’s. What can I get you?”

“Cinnamon sugar pretzel,” Chenle replies, to which Jisung nods. 

“And a date.”

Jisung stills, looking at the register where he’d been punching in Chenle’s order. Then, slowly, he raises his head to look at Chenle, head cocking to the right innocently. Chenle’s shaking in his boots, but he’ll never admit it. Definitely not to Donghyuck. 

“Dates? We don’t have dates. We do have raisins, though.”

Chenle stands there, eyes fixed on Jisung, looking for some kind of facial expression. Maybe Jisung’s pulling a prank, he thinks, but Jisung’s got this innocent look on his face that tells Chenle otherwise. 

“I, uh,” Chenle stammers, heat rising to his face, “I’ll get one of those, then.”

-

“He _what_ ,” Donghyuck laughs, doubling over, much to Chenle’s chagrin. 

“It’s not funny! Now I have a raisin pretzel and no date. I don’t even _like_ raisins!”

“Oh my god, you might be crushing on an idiot,” Donghyuck says in-between laughs, “I’m telling Jeno this.”

Chenle huffs, walking away from the counter where Donghyuck continues to laugh maniacally. He decides to busy himself with rearranging the makeup brushes at the vanity, although it’s 5 pm and nobody really comes into Sephora for a makeover at 5 pm. He wonders where it all went wrong, wonders if there’s even a chance at this whole thing with Jisung at all. No, he thinks. He’s not quitting, not giving up yet. Not when victory feels this close. He looks at himself in the vanity mirror, purple locks glaringly bright against the black and white backdrop of Sephora. He ruffles his hair, resolute. Zhong Chenle is _not_ a quitter. 

-

Day 2 of attempting to ask Jisung out has Chenle repeating the same process as the day before. He’s hid behind the pillar, checking his makeup. He’d put in a little more effort this morning, making sure to adorn his bottom lash line with the slightest hint of glitter. Not that he’s expecting Jisung to notice or anything.

“Oh, hi,” Jisung starts, the ‘hi’ drowning out on his lips, as if he’s waiting for someone to fill the blank.

“Chenle. My name is Chenle.”

Jisung nods, then smiles wide enough so that Chenle can see his cute little teeth. “Hi, Chenle,” Jisung finishes, and Chenle wonders how Jisung has him swooning over a pronunciation of his name. “Welcome to Auntie Anne’s. What can I get you?”

“Cinnamon sugar pretzel. Also, do you want to go out?”

Chenle watches in anticipation as Jisung scrunches his nose, eyebrows furrowing in visible confusion.

“Now? Outside the mall? Why? I just started my shift?” Jisung asks, rather arbitrarily, and his manager sends him a pointed look. Noticing his manager’s stare, Jisung shifts awkwardly in his position, attention back on the cash register where he goes to type in Chenle’s order, “my manager will kill me if i leave now.”

“Right. My bad,” Chenle backpedals, “just a cinnamon sugar pretzel then.”

-

“Yeah, you’re definitely crushing on an idiot,” Donghyuck says in-between laughs, again, and Chenle feels a dreaded sense of deja vu. 

“At least he’s cute,” Chenle murmurs, but it’s loud enough that Donghyuck hears it. The slap Chenle gives Donghyuck after he fake gags is, unfortunately, also loud enough to get Taeyong to beckon them to get back to work. 

-

On day 3, Chenle abandons his past routine of hiding behind the pillar. Third time’s a charm, he thinks. Although he’s still nervous about asking Jisung out, even he’s getting impatient, and, as Donghyuck had told him, “Just ask him as directly as possible. Ask him to kiss you, or something. He can’t get the wrong idea then!”

He marches right up to the counter, and Jisung has his eyebrows raised and mouth tightened cutely, seemingly surprised to see Chenle with so much confidence.

“Hi, Chenle. Welcome to Auntie Anne’s, what-”

“Can I get you,” Chenle mirrors, melting a little inside at Jisung’s surprised expression, eyes going wide. “Yeah, yeah. I want to ask you something.”

Jisung adjusts his cap awkwardly, looking around. It leaves his hair more ruffled than before, bangs coming to cover his eyebrows and resting lightly on his lashes. He’s the only one on shift now, his co-workers on break. Seeing that the coast is clear, he nods.

“Do you want to go on a date with me? No raisins. Like, a romance date. Where we hold hands, and stuff. You and me,” Chenle spills, then coughs into his hand when he notices Jisung flush bright red against the blue of his work apron, glowing brighter than the yellow sign behind him. “A date. Do you want to?” Chenle finishes, and, no matter what answer he gets, Chenle gives himself a big round of applause for pulling through with this whole thing. His whole body feels lighter, and he even feels a spring in his step.

“...Okay, yeah,” Jisung stutters, body still frozen solid, hands fiddling with the hem of his apron, “I’d like that.” Finally, he makes eye contact with Chenle, and his eyes crinkle when he smiles.

Chenle blinks. He hadn’t really planned this part of the conversation.

“Uh,” Jisung fishes his phone out of the front pocket of his work apron, opening it up to the contacts page, handing his phone to Chenle over the counter. “Here, type in your number.”

-

Later, when Chenle arrives home from work, he hears his phone pinging (not that he had been waiting, or anything), and his heart skips a beat at the sound. 

**Unknown Number**

[25/07/19, 20:03]

hi, this is jisung! from auntie anne’s :)

**Chenle**

[25/07/19, 20:04]

hi jisungie!!! so, the date??

**Jisung**

[25/07/19, 20:07]

i’m down for anything!

**Chenle**

[25/07/19, 20:08]

any interests?

there’s gotta be something you like in particular

**Jisung**

[25/07/19, 20:08]

nope

i just sit around and make pretzels all day :(

It’s only when his mother calls for dinner that Chenle realises he’d been smiling at his phone like an idiot the whole time.

They eventually settle on the arcade on the other side of the mall, after Jisung’s morning shift. Chenle had made the fatal mistake of walking by Sephora on his way there, only to be stopped and harassed by a very nosy Donghyuck (“You’re all grown up!” He fake sobs, patting Chenle’s purple hair even though he’d spent the entire morning arranging it, sending him off with a “don’t get too excited! I’m checking your neck when you get back!”). 

He’s a bundle of nerves and jitters when he finally gets there, but it seems like Jisung is no better. He’s in a red flannel, ripped black jeans, and Chenle has to pinch himself to stop staring because Jisung looks so _good._

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

“I brought you something,” Jisung says, hand extended as he holds a little white bag, with the tell-tale blue and yellow checkered print on it. Cute, Chenle thinks, before it hits him.

“Actually, Jisung, I… don’t even really like pretzels.”

Jisung retracts his outstretched hand, and looks quizzically at the pretzel in hand.

“Huh?”

Now it’s Chenle’s turn to flush, and he feels his knees go weak, the tips of his ears hot. “I get the cinnamon sugar one just for the sugar. But, uh, I mostly bought the pretzels to see you.”

Jisung points a finger to himself. “Me?”

Chenle laughs awkwardly, rolling his eyes. “Yeah, you. Who else? You’re the only cute one there.”

“Oh,” Jisung breathes, cheeks painted a pretty shade of pink, nose scrunching up like it always does when he’s shy. Chenle takes note of it, and decides that he’ll compliment (tease) Jisung as many times as he needs to, as long as he gets to see Jisung like this again. Jisung only manages to squeeze in one bite of the sugar-dusted pretzel, before he’s being dragged by the arm into the arcade.

-

Later, in the carpark of the mall, Chenle learns that Jisung’s lips taste like cinnamon sugar. 

**Author's Note:**

> and there it is, my first fic!! woohoo!!
> 
> i hope you enjoyed it :) as mentioned before, I have a noren wip that's on the way, so please do stick around for that one! I've also got a bunch of ideas for noren that i'm really excited to work on after this wip.
> 
> kudos, comments and feedback are greatly appreciated! 
> 
> find me on twt: [norenisms](https://twitter.com/norenisms)


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